Re: Christmas...

Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu
Sun, 13 Dec 1998 18:15:03 -0600 

amen, erin...matt [i re-posted her entire post because it was so great.
helena & Matt, please don't put coal in my stocking.]

On Sat, 12 Dec 1998 09:10:48 -0800 (PST) erinseyes@hotmail.com (Erin
McLaughlin) wrote:

>"How's Christmas treating yall anyway? I always think of TCIR as a
>`Christmas' novel (`Hold the sonuvabitch up! Hold it up there!' (:).
>When you think about it, it's a perfect time to set it, when you think
>of Christmas as the ultimate season having been reclaimed by the phonies
>- turning one of the greatest events of the Christian calendar into a
>junk mail free-for-all. You could go into all the wider
>religiousimplications for this ... but hey, it's Christmas."
> --Camille
>
>"Camille I definitely agree. I just can not wait until Christmas is
>over. Also Christmas is a time when many people feel lonely and
>depressed, as Holden did throughout the novel." -Liz Friedman
>
>I couldn't help but respond to this one. I mean, is Christmas
>commercialized? YES. There's no doubt about it. But Christmas isn't
>phony. It COULD be phony, but it just isn't. Let's see if I can
>explain...
>
>When I was in high school, a full believer in everything Holden had to
>say, I thought he was so right about all the things he said about
>phoniness and how terrible it was to have all these actors who couldn't
>wait to have a cigarette dragging Jesus who was dragging his cross all
>aroung the stage or whatever. That's why I stopped going to Church, in
>fact. I was SURE that the guy in front of me was thinking about what
>he'd have for dinner while he was saying the Our Father. I just KNEW it,
>and it damn near drove me crazy. I couldn't even go anymore because I
>thought it was such a load of crap.
>
>But then I got older, and I realized how stupid it was for me not to go
>to Church because I thought OTHER people were there for the wrong
>reasons. I mean, why should I let what I think other people are thinking
>stop me from believing in something?
>
>I believe in Christmas. I believe in it for all the right reasons. And I
>love it. I love those chessy Christmas songs, and I don't care who's
>making a buck for singing them. I like red flannel pajamas and I like
>candy canes and advent calendars, even. And I don't care if someone
>makes these things to benefit financially from a sacred day. What I do
>care about is that it is sacred to me. It means something to me. My
>heart is full and my belly is full and the house is full and the
>stockings are full and I'll be damned if I let the cynicism I fought so
>hard to beat get me down again.
>
>Phoniness isn't what everyone else in the world is doing or thinking.
>It's just when you start not being true to youself. And you just can't
>force your values on other people. (Although I'm trying really hard...)
>
>I wish everyone could just watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and love it the
>way I love it. I don't care who made it or why or how much the actors
>got paid or what they thought of the movie itself. Because somebody
>thought of that wonderful story. And whether they thought of it for the
>"right" reasons or not, those thoughts came from someplace so human, and
>someplace that thought that maybe, even if it is just in the movies,
>life can be good no matter how rotten it seems. You know?
>
>I don't know. I'm a sap on a soapbox. But what depresses me around
>Christmas or any other day isn't all the crap that blinks, it's all the
>people who don't...the ones who aren't phased by the witnessing of all
>the tiny miracles that do happen and that are real. I believe in
>Christmas, and I believe in myself, and I believe in the general
>goodness of humanity. And I don't doubt there are grinches, but I also
>don't doubt Dr. Suess.
>
>Sorry, but I had to write this.
>
>Merry Christmas,
>
>Erin
>
>
>
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